Electric vehicles use battery modules made up of hundreds of battery cells which individually store an electrical charge. The electrical energy from the battery cells is delivered to an electric motor for use in producing mechanical power to move the vehicle, as well as to auxiliary systems. The battery cells are interconnected in order to provide collective energy storage with sufficient voltage and current to power the relevant systems of the vehicle and provide a satisfactory range for the vehicle. Each battery cell has a positive and negative connection point which serve as the locations for the interconnection.
A common configuration for an electric vehicle battery module uses one or more busbars to connect the positive terminals to each other and one or more separate busbars to connect the negative terminals to each other. In this way, the busbars can create singular positive and negative terminals for a collection of battery cells in a battery module. This simplifies the battery module for connection to the electric motor.
Typically, busbars are connected to the terminals of the battery cells by mechanical means. For example, a plurality of conductive links or wires may be respectively welded to the positive and negative terminals of the battery cells, forming a connection chain which connects the battery cells. This welded configuration may be less than ideal in some situations, however, because it requires many weld points to be produced and for each to be functional and reliable. Moreover, the connection may not be strong enough to withstand relative movement between battery cells, resulting in the need for additional structure (e.g., a tight-fitting battery case) to hold the battery cells.
The present disclosure is directed to overcoming these and other problems of the prior art.